have you tried looking for plantain leaves?? Apart for corn husks, many other countries use plantain leaves although they will give your tamale a different flavor...not so pronounced but they will give it a more earthy tone, I would experiment with parchment paper but I will recommend using a more sturdy and thicker parchment paper

APaperlace1 I'm not sure where you are in the UK, but there is a large Mexican shop in East London (near Bethnal Green) called Casa Mexico. They sell Mexican groceries, including packs of corn husks. If you can't get there in person I think you can also order online.

our ethnic shops concentrate on ASIAN we are just beginning to get stuff from the baltic states but mexican and south american foods are almost non exsistant in the UK

S

In the asian markets you should be able to fing banana leaves and corn husks. They are usually in the frozen section and are imported from the Phillipenes.. I'm in Canada and just found this hard to find item there this past weekend.

thanks for this lindsey- just had a look the postage is more than the product think i will try the parchment idea first. I have a mexican food shop here is yorkshire it is about 30 miles away so i will wait and do a store cupboard trip.

just thought about my asian shop will have to check out there freezer section. as suggested - thanks everyone.